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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27241888">ceu fumus in auras commixtus tenues, fugit</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahala/pseuds/ahala'>ahala</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Julius Caesar - Shakespeare, Rome (TV 2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Body Horror, F/M, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion &amp; Lore), M/M, Mental Instability, Recreational Drug Use, its halloween time, no beta we die like men, this fic is kind of weird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:07:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,776</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27241888</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahala/pseuds/ahala</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within...silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.” - Shirley Jackson, "The Haunting of Hill House"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Mark Antony/Cleopatra VII of Egypt, Mark Antony/Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It was dangerous to leave the light muslin canopy shrouding his bed, breaching the circle of protective amulets and herbs, incense and tablets that surrounded the creaking wooden frame and comforting expanse of goose-feather down. It was even more dangerous to walk across the cool sandstone floors, past the overturned bench and the emptied wardrobe with its contents spilled on the ground, the large mounds of wax dripping from eternally lit candles chasing out every corner of darkness. It was deadly to go out into the hallway where the walls stretched up into oblivion, with a row of flickering torches on one side, wavering under the steady currents of Alexandrian sea air that drifted in from the bay. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Antony could easily cover his eyes and plug his ears and drug himself into a void when he lay in his bed, but leaving that haven to go out into the waiting jaws of the very thing that hunted him was to flirt with his own ruin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He armed himself with nothing, brought not his sword, nor a knife, not even a candlestick. He had long since learned that there was nothing he could use to shield himself rather than his own will and the love in his heart that kept his terror from overcoming him. He stepped out. The bedroom door echoed through the hall as it shut behind him. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Years ago, two soldiers were brought before him, their hands bound behind their backs with chafing rope. They were pushed down to their knees and their heads hung down in shame. The officer who brought them gave Antony a bundled handkerchief. He held it in his palm and opened the fabric. Three severed fingers, messily sawed through, were in a row. Each bloated, discoloured finger bore a different ring. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>One ring was a silver band, a signet ring, with an ibis engraved in it and a name carved below in all capital letters. The silver was tarnished over time, and the engraving had faded as well, old pieces of clay and wax stuck into the finer corners and details of the ibis. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other ring was gold, although discoloured and worn, with an opal piece laid in the gold. A small picture was carved in it of two hands joining together in matrimony. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The third ring was similar to the second in design, though the pewter was cheaper and whatever piece had once been laid in the metal with the marriage carving had been pulled out and discarded. One might have thought that the pair of thieves had removed it themselves to make a better profit off of the ring, or maybe even to keep it for themselves, but Antony knew better. He held the severed finger in his bare hands and ran his thumb over the blank face of the ring, remembering when he was a youth and slid that very ring onto the severed finger he held in his hand.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Antony held his breath as he walked down the hall. He ran his hand along the cool wall, as if he were scared of losing his way. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The body had already been burned and the ashes gathered into an ornate urn, carefully packed into a chest of wool and straw and shipped back to Rome when the trio of severed fingers were returned to Antony. It made no sense to him to have them burned as well and sent back to a family who would have seen the gesture as an offense, some mocking jest, sending their son back bit by bit, piece by piece. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the bleak and eerie transition after winning a war he was not proud to win, the idea of noble Brutus in the Underworld and missing a few fingers never failed to make Antony toss his head back in laughter, or struggle to suppress a grin when he was in the company of others.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they began to rot and grow putrid, he burned them by himself on a little pyre. He couldn't manage to make the fire hot enough, and so, after the kindling had burned itself to the dust, the flesh had burned to ash, but the bones and the rings were unscathed. Antony hissed as his own fingers were burned by the still-sizzling embers as he knelt down and picked out each bone, gathering them into his palm. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bones were pearly white and smooth. The side of one was curved inward slightly where Brutus would hold his pen in his tight, crushing grip when he wrote. Another had a small knob on it where it healed after a break. He put them all into a small canvas pouch. Antony tried to put the rings on his fingers, but none of them fit, not even onto his smallest finger, and so he added them with the bones as well. He told himself that he was going to do something with them, add them to the urn, or give them to a family member that survived him, but they always stayed close to his own hand. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Antony felt the fabric of the air shiver. A breeze kicked up behind him and ambled forth, tickling his legs. His hands were clammy and stuck to the wall as he walked. There was no hiding from him anymore, and he knew that before he left his bedchamber, and yet the feeling of his voyeur’s sightless gaze settling upon him stole the breath from his lungs. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The first time Antony had scattered the bones onto the altar and breathed in the poppy smoke as he spoke the sacred words, Brutus appeared to him, his visage wavering like his substanceless body was penetrating the atmosphere. He looked surprised as if Antony had yanked the bed-covers off of him and was staring at his naked form. (From then on, Antony felt the presence of his unseen voyeur acutely.) Delighted in the sight of one another, they spoke for hours. Brutus listened as Antony raved about his new children and his new queen and his new life in Alexandria, freed from the fetters of an overbearing, self-destructive Rome. Brutus spoke of the lonely land he inhabited, barred by the Ferryman from continuing on to the Underworld until his remains had all been buried, as befits any Roman nobleman. They were still speaking even when the east lightened in the dawn, and the west grew scarlet orange with evening fire until Antony could not keep himself from crumpling onto the floor, fast asleep. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brutus’s delight decayed steadily with each time Antony drew him out from the shadowy realm he existed in, the ease of his smiles and the light in his eyes wearing away like skin drying and decaying, being pulled taut over eternal bones, making it difficult to deny the truth- he was displeased. That is, until one night, when Antony said the magic words by heart, Brutus was looking back at him clearly, as if it were he who pulled back the veil. “How long, Antony,” he said in his quiet monotone, “will you abuse my patience?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Antony laughed, for he knew not what Brutus meant.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>He thinks of Mother, who he knows must be dead, even though he never bothered to ask. For hours, he stands on the grey shores of that endless sea of shallow, tepid water, and imagines her on the other side, combing manically through the fields of asphodel, studying the faces of every Shade she sees, pleading to know what has become of her firstborn son. He wonders if she has given up her search yet, if she will eventually forget the face of her child or his name first. He thinks to himself that he could never forget her. He spends days trying to recall Mother’s name, and comes up only with the smell of verbena in her hair and the lilt of her voice as she sang about Andromache while she weaved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wanders back away from the shore and into the dense, flat woodland and thinks that he might weep. He doesn’t see any point in doing so. Such potent emotions are a distant memory, and the desire to feel them asunder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He goes when he is summoned, otherwise he remains as he is, mild and alone. There are so many ways to be empty.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>September was fast approaching, and Alexandria was still roaring with heat, even in the dark of night, even in the large withdrawing room Antony took solace in. He pushed the bones around with his fingertip, gingerly and deftly arranging them until three fingers took shape on the floor. An anatomist could not have done a more loving job. Antony covered the fingers with his own, feeling them press against his skin. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look,” he said, wistfully, his words slurred, “we’re holding hands.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Brutus was barely visible, no more than a slight shimmer, a tremble in the night air when he moved. “Why won’t you let me go?” He whispered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just for you to be lost in the Underworld among the Shades? Don’t be a fool. I’m doing you a favour by holding onto these for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” said Brutus, “all you ever do is think about yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Antony glowered. “I’m still living. You chose to end your own life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Indeed, and yet you resurrect me to bear witness to you eating yourself alive, and for what? You teach me what it is to hate you.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>For months now, every time Antony would toss the bones and coax Brutus from his shell beyond the grave, Brutus would repeat these words, saying nothing else: “Why do you punish me? Why do you keep me trapped here in this awful place? What did I do wrong? Set me free, I beg you, bury me.”</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Antony’s eyes opened and took in the dark ceiling above him. The bed-covers were smooth and cool on his bare skin and he breathed deeply, reaching up to rub his eyes. If it was a dream that roused him, it had already faded from his mind. He shifted, moving his hips until the tension released and he sighed. His wife burrowed deeper under the covers beside him, stirring only slightly at his disturbance. As he turned on his side to face her, something stood out in the corner of his eye. He propped himself up on his elbows and rubbed his eyes again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A shadow, just barely asserting itself into existence, darkness spilling into an almost human shape, was perched on the bench at the foot of the bed, sitting still, watching. Antony startled. Its shape was gnarled and rotted, all sinew and gristle; human once, but now blinded by cataracts and hatred, feeling only the burden of something terrible that must be done. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you punish me?” it whispered. “Why do you keep me trapped here in this awful place? What did I do wrong? Set me free, I beg you, bury me.” Cold dread seized Antony’s joints, pooling into the base of three of his fingers until it seemed to burn him. Wildly, he dared to let his gaze fall away from the spectre so he could look at his bedside table. The canvas pouch was still sealed, the imprints of the bones within standing out. His heart sank and, with devastating tardiness, he began to feel out of control.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The apparition wailed, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Why do you punish me? Why do you keep me trapped here in this awful place? What did I do wrong? Set me free, I beg you, bury me, bury me, bury me, bury me!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Antony gasped as he woke, though he could not tell if he was roused from sleep, or from a vision. Cleopatra worried over him, her hands stroking his sweaty forehead, pushing back his hair. “Easy, easy, my love,” she soothed, shushing him gently. Her eyes were filled with fear. His chest was heaving for breath, his gaze searching wildly for any fleeing remnant of that apparition as he scrambled up to look at the bench at the end of the bed. Nothing was there. His skin began to tingle as if someone were flicking hot oil on him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Antony pushed her away, bile rising in his throat. He scrambled out of bed. The covers caught on his sweaty legs and he violently pulled himself away. Panicked screams escaped his chest as he paced, still hyperventilating. He tore off his nightshirt. The fabric tore under his fingernails. He threw it on the floor and looked down at his skin, shimmering with perspiration. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even in the dark he could make it out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His flesh was littered with dark purple bruises. In some places little puncture marks seemingly imprinted onto him at random in a frantic array. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He did not need to count. He knew the sight all too well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Twenty-three wounds were etched into his skin.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The breeze strengthened to a sudden gust raging through the hallway, and one by one, the torches lining the wall were snuffed out, abandoning Antony in darkness. Grey smoke trailed up from the blackened tips, as if it were trembling away from what was about to come. He stopped where he stood, one hand gripping the side of the wall, the other grasping at his own face, shielding his eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>At once, all was still. The wind was gone, all noise subsiding, save for Antony’s shuddering breath. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>An ethereal gaze bore into his back, as heavy as if his back were turned to the entire Senate. Without the ghost needing to utter a single word, every part of Antony commanded him to turn and face that which was watching him, if only to legitimise his terror. He was beyond such needs now, even though some part of him still wanted to reaffirm it. Every moment that he was abandoned to his own thoughts, any lasting moment of silence, he was pursued without fail, and Antony was beginning to fray. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did I do wrong?” Came the voice that made dread stir within his blood. “What did I do wrong?” He could feel the ghost directly behind him, that freezing presence nearly pressed against his skin, the unnaturalness of it all making him crumple to his knees. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Please</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Antony cried, holding his hand out. The air fluttered, scattered. A mighty gust of wind whipped around him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What did I do wrong?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you keep me trapped here in this awful place?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Am I just supposed to let you go?” He yelled over the wind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I beg you, bury me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Antony shook his head profusely. Suffering this attack every day, fearing it every moment he was conscious, dreading it every time he laid his head to rest, was a lesser burden than existing alone, </span>
  <em>
    <span>without him</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “I can’t do it,” his voice cracked. “I cannot let you go.” His chest grew heavy and tight and a panicked sob was crushed from his lungs. The hand covering his eyes fell to his side. He opened his eyes suddenly, against all better judgement, and looked behind him into the hallway, filled with liquid darkness and the tall imprint of an even blacker black among the barely visible. He expected the shape to fade into nothingness, drawn into the recesses of the Underworld finally.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Disoriented, he blinked and found himself alone in a pile of cushions, crowned with a halo of opium smoke. </span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>The thick, balmy leaves of camellias and ivys and fig trees and plants that were entirely foreign to Antony thrived under the ministrations of the local botanists. They kept even the warmest nights cool with their fragrant, soft soils and fresh leaves, some of the branches still bearing fruit at this time of the year. The rows of tall trees and aromatic shrubs breathed a collective sigh as a thin night wind rolled in from the sea. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He made out a figure sitting on a wooden bench in a clearing bordered by brightly coloured mosaic planters filled with blooming asphodel. His back was turned to Antony. The man was slouching, leaning back on his hands. His white toga was pale, ethereal, in the light of the moon, and the purple streak upon it almost washed out by the milky beams stretching out over the entirety of the garden.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Brutus?” He called quietly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man began to turn, and just before Antony could see his face illuminated by the light of Khonsu’s moon, that briny wind kicked up once more and it scattered the man into ashes, carrying him away into the night sky, beyond comprehension.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Epilogue</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He’s being watched closely. It’s only fair, Lucilius supposes, that some distrust exists between him and his countrymen, but if it isn’t enough to kill him or take him prisoner, then he isn’t sure why it needs to be present at all. It only exists to further separate them, as if that could be possible at all. It makes him surly, and coaxes a rare striation of rebelliousness from him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Antony would have laughed if Lucilius told him so. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He mulled it over as he sat on a stool, staring into the flames of a small bonfire, one of many scattered around the camp set up just outside the Royal Palace. Octavian would not kill him. Lucilius knew that much. The royal children would need him too much for them to ever acclimate to Rome and, even more important, the legions would have a fit. That didn’t mean, however, that Octavian wasn’t right to be tact. So if Octavian would worry regardless, Lucilius would provide him with something to worry about.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He stood with resolve and fastened his cloak, walking past numerous sentries and into the Palace. It was far from empty, but gave off the distinct feeling of being uninhabited and abused, standing dark and silent, absent of little children and warm food, bustling scholars and ambassadors from all over. He knew it was far from the truth to think that the Palace had been bursting with life up until Octavian had broken down the doors, but it was the only truth that could comfort him as old memories furnished the newly decrepit and defunct. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Blood still sparkled on the floors. Dark, curly hair sprinkled one puddle that rested at the base of a statue of the late Julius Caesar. Lucilius shivered as he remembered the cries of the young man screaming for his deceased mother and deceased father. Briefly, he remembered that someday he would need to decide just how unforgivable the fate Antony left for his eldest son was. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that was no task for him now, who still had yet to come to terms with the fact that they both were gone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He made his way through the labyrinth of halls and rooms, some occupied by servants and slaves, others laying dormant, until he reached Antony’s old quarters. The door was unlocked. It creaked as he pushed it open, stepping inside. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The room was left not in a state of routine use, but in unsettling disarray. Chests, drawers, and wardrobes were ransacked, their contents left all on the floor in some sort of calculated array, in the same way a farmer would sow his seeds. Around the perimeter of the room was a shaky line of salt with amulets dropped onto the trail. Another boundary was drawn along the bed, which was pulled away from the wall. A wardrobe was shoddily pushed under the bed. Candlesticks sat in great puddles of wax on every surface of the room, smothering books and heirlooms and old artistic relics. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>As Lucilius wandered around the room, it seemed to be more of a bunker than a bedchamber. Still, in some ways, it was fitting for his old friend, who was in a fantastic state of decline leading up to his death. The eeriness of it all made the hair on the back of his neck rise as if someone were watching him.<br/></span>
</p><p>
  <span>He was startled from his thoughts as the door gently clicked shut. His voice almost raised to ask who was there, but Lucilius quickly determined that it would be best if he was alone and unknown here. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He went to the bedside, where a little canvas bag caught his eye. He picked it up, thinking at first it was filled with little stones, but it was much too light for that. Lucilius untied the fraying cord and overturned the pouch. A small collection of bones rattled onto the bed and he gasped, recoiling. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Aio!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” He exclaimed, jumping back. Three metal rings jingled against one another as they, too, fell among the collection of bones. “Antony,” he whispered to himself, “what in the name of the gods </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> this?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He picked up one of the rings, a little silver band, and turned it this way and that, straining his eyes to see. It had been many years, he realised, since the ring, or rather, the emblem on the ring, had meant anything to it. It was the letter seal of a very old friend and compatriot, indeed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lucilius sighed in understanding. Of course. There had been an execution many years ago. Two men were put to death by Antony after they were caught with three rings belonging to a certain Brutus. Though, Lucilius never knew anything about the fingers themselves being in their possession as well. He also never knew that the remains had found their way onto Antony’s bedside table. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thought of it left a strange feeling in his gut. Antony might have gotten tired of his piety, but Lucilius refused to gamble with spirits and the gods, no matter how much Antony had deemed it old-fashioned and a waste of time. In the end, one of them was still living, and the other chose to take his own life; the bones were in his own possession now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Trying not to retch, he gathered the remains, along with the rings, back into the pouch, and wondered how someone could ever carry such a token around with them for so many years without ever being disturbed by it. Lucilius scoffed as he thought to himself how Antony probably never once noticed the subtle ways in which the spirits could express their displeasure when desired for it to be known. If he had, surely he would have dealt with the remains accordingly and spared himself the inconvenience of angry ghosts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lucilius was no fool; he was quick to find the funerary urn housing Antony’s ashes when he slipped out of the Palace. He whispered a blessing that he hoped would suffice, sealed the bones away in the very same urn and left them to rest until the end of eternity.<br/></span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>the title translates to: "like a wisp of smoke, thinned into air, was gone"</p><p>also much thanks to caepio and ciparisso for letting me talk through these ideas, and also for peer pressuring me to write them</p></blockquote></div></div>
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